Wednesday, April 25, 2012

"Cognitive Views of Learning"

Cognitive views of
learning focuses on how information is processed. When thinking about the
cognitive views some questions might appear such as; how do students learn new
information, what is the role of practice for learning, why do students forget
information and what is metacognition?

Students learn new
information by using meaningful learning, which is when students "learn
new information by making connections between the new information and their
prior knowledge" (Moreno, 203). Meaningful learning is the opposite
to rote learning. Rote learning is when a student can recall information;
however the information has no meaning to it. As a student I could see why
students would use rote learning methods (I know I use it in some classes).
However, as a future teacher I do not see it as an effective way of learning. I
would much rather see my students use meaningful learning methods, this way I
know that they understand the topic completely and are not just memorizing it.

The role of practice in
learning is that in order to learn new information you must use the “Three
Times” rule; which is when you go over the information three times in order for
it to stick in your memory. For example when studying for a test; first read
the chapter, then you review the chapter in class and lastly you re-read the
chapter.

Students will sometimes
forget new information because they did not process the information once it
entered the sensory memory. The chart below is an example of the
information-processing model. Psychologists believe that this is how students
process information. As it shows in the chart if a student does not process the
information to the working memory it will be lost. Long-term memory and
short-term memory also come into play here.

Citation: "Memory." AP Psychology Community. Web. 25 Apr. 2012.

<http://www.appsychology.com/Book/Cognition/Memory/memoryintro.htm>.

As a teacher we need to be aware of how much information students or humans in general can comprehend. This will help in a classroom because now that we are aware of how humans process information we can make sure we do not overload our students with important information, instead slowly work in the new information. In a way this can be compared to metacognition. Metacognition is, knowing about knowing, it is knowing how and what works best for ourselves.